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Cape Town – Head coach John Mitchell is understandably
pragmatic about past champions the Bulls’ 2018 Super Rugby campaign.

He bluntly warned as he revealed his 38-strong squad on
Monday: “I don’t want to make any promises on how the team will perform this
year … it’s about marginal gains for us.”

Even the most diehard of the Loftus supporters are likely to
reluctantly agree that the 2018 Bulls can’t be branded feasible title – or even
SA conference-winning? – material quite yet, especially considering that it
will be the former All Black coach’s first campaign in charge of the Pretoria
outfit.

A quick run-through of the Bulls’ youth-themed resources
pretty much confirms that fairly notable improvement on their 2017 overall
finish (15th out of the then-18 teams) seems their most realistic
goal this time around.

Frankly, in the vast majority of positions they do not yet
boast the quality or depth of personnel to genuinely scare the bigger
franchises competition-wide into believing the Bulls are dark horses for the
silverware.

But there is one very bright exception: the second row.

In the shape of Lood de Jager, RG Snyman, Jason Jenkins and
Ruben van Heerden, the Bulls seem outstandingly covered for the next few months
(Mitchell also named the rangy, Victor Matfield-idolising young Aston Fortuin
among his lock arsenal).

That amounts to enviable depth in the event of injury and,
if that bugbear stays largely away, also a confident license for Mitchell to
rotate his locks shrewdly for the sake of lasting freshness among them.

What’s more, all of the likely premier quartet combine the
critical attributes of power, grunt, athleticism, mobility and – perhaps above
all – serious blessings in the height department.

If, for example, the Bulls were to put out Snyman (2.06m) and
De Jager (2.05m) as starting combo for their first fixture against the
Hurricanes (Loftus, February 24), that is a fine recipe for creating chaos on
the opposition throw, even if the Bulls may well find the New Zealanders too
hot to handle in various other areas on the park.

Between them, that pair shouldn’t encounter any alliance in
the tournament who are their match in the tall-timber department, albeit that
the Rebels have snapped up that striking Australian “tower block” Adam Coleman
from the controversially ousted Western Force.

Remember that both De Jager and Snyman have the necessary –
and already proven – qualities to seamlessly double as No 4 or 5 second-rowers.

This will be Big Lood’s second season for the Bulls, and if
Mitchell (who played often enough at lock himself during his own first-class
career) manages to coax the sort of form that earned him SA Rugby Player of the
Year in 2015 out of the former Cheetahs favourite, it will only emphasise their
gifts in the position.

De Jager is the Bok incumbent at No 5 anyway, but he is also
a challenger for the Bok “four” task in the event that Stormers hard man Eben
Etzebeth, still the country’s top second-rower, doesn’t recover from his injury
in time to play the home series against England in June.

That said, Snyman and Jenkins should also be ready to pounce
on any opportunity to force a gap into Bok favour; the former is still only 22
(albeit 23 next week) but embarking on his third Super Rugby season, and the
latter the same age and also braced for his third crack at the southern
hemisphere competition.

This particular duo have also had the useful, mind-broadening
experience of late of plying their trades for a while in Japanese rugby with
Honda Heat and Toyota Verblitz respectively.

But if competition for Bulls places will be tough enough just
between De Jager, Snyman and Jenkins, we need to introduce at this point the
constructive, and not so little curveball of Van Heerden (2m, 115kg).

Only 20, this mobile but forceful former Affies pupil, also
valued for his high tackle counts, got a reasonable sampling of the big time
when he played generous stretches of the 2017 Currie Cup for the Blue Bulls,
including the semi-final where their hopes were eventually scuppered by the
Sharks in Durban.

He could well prove some sort of Super Rugby rookie bolter
this year, given enough opportunities and the character not to feel overawed.

The whole situation in the Loftus lock cupboard harks back
just a little – even though the current quartet would probably be quick to
acknowledge they have a way to go in reputation-building yet – to the Bulls’
title-dominating heyday between 2007 and 2010.

Then, albeit not always simultaneously, they had on their
books a massively formidable foursome of all-international second row stocks in
Matfield, Bakkies Botha, Flip van der Merwe and the versatile Danie Rossouw.

The present group have the potential to gradually challenge that
clique of excellence, especially if they can somehow be kept together – sadly,
a limited likelihood only? -- for more than just the 2018 season.

Now if only the Bulls of today boasted such rosy resources
in other positions …